


Between the Raindrops With You

by HolleringHawk65



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Hawk and Dove (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College (ish), Alternate Universe - No Capes, Definitely modern setting, M/M, Well Don Hall is dead and that's talked about, implied BruBabs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-17 03:44:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4650963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolleringHawk65/pseuds/HolleringHawk65
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hank hasn't seen Dick since Don's funeral. Dawn thinks that it's a great idea for all of them to go to lunch together--and maybe Dick has other motives for them going too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Raindrops With You

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a college AU with Bruce/Hank but then the wonderful Madnizilla posted "Dick as a yoga instructor" (or something like that, don't source me for the wording) and then this happened. Wish I was more into yoga to talk about it!

Don had once told me that Dick had been an acrobat when he was younger, before his family was killed, before he turned into a punk and before he turned into a yoga instructor who drinks green tea and still plays acoustic guitar and writes poetry.

I never really believed it until I was standing in Dick's yoga studio, watching him pull off the most ridiculous of poses. There wasn't anyone else in the studio except for us, and we were only here because Dawn was returning a pie plate and required me to drive her here.

I hadn't seen Dick since the funeral, but he hadn't changed much. Still smaller than me, still smiling like the sun was trapped inside of him, and still looking at me as if I was a puppy left in a box left out in the rain that said "Please take one."

"Hank! It's so good to see you," he said as he hugged me before taking the pie plate from Dawn and giving her a kiss in the cheek. "How have you been?"

It's a question people ask me a lot. It's bean a year and a half since Don died and it still feels like I'm living day to day.

No one really knows that though, not even Dawn, so all I say is "Better" because the last time he saw me I had broken down and was sobbing in my car, and all Dick could say was 'he's in a better place,' and look at me with too blue eyes.

But now he smiles at me like nothing was ever wrong, like the whole world is rainbows and meditation. "My roommate and I are having lunch, do you two want to come with us? It's just down the street."

Dawn is smiling like it's the best idea she's ever heard. She's close with Barbara, who is Dick's best friend, so the two see a lot of each other, almost dated once, so I'm not surprised that she goes along with the idea. I didn't really want to (though I do at the same time), and I'm her ride, not to mention that I wouldn't really trust her with Dick's driving even if it has gotten better in previous years.

It really is just down the street, in a little hole in the wall place, which is so Dick to find, and when we sit down, they start to make small talk while I try not to look nervous. He probably won't bring up Don. He doesn't really fit into a normal conversation anymore.

After we ordered some drinks, including a Sprite for Dick's roommate, said roommate finally appeared. Dick waved him over when he walked in before standing up. "Bruce! You know Dawn, and this is Hank Hall. You knew his brother, Don? Hank, this is Bruce Wayne."

Leave it to Dick for his roommate to be like, ten years older than him, and heir to a multi billion dollar Enterprise. It made me wonder if 'roommate' was a euphemism for either 'boyfriend', 'sugar daddy' (though I did hold Dick a little higher than that, especially now), or 'fuck buddies.'

Then what Dick had said hit me. "You know--knew--Don?"

Bruce looked over at Dick, his eyes saying a million things but one of them predominantly being "why the hell did you say that Dick, can't you keep your mouth shut for once?" but instead he ended up saying: "Yes. I was with him when..."

Right, because he had been in Africa on an outreach trip sponsored by the Wayne Foundation when... "Oh."

Bruce took a sip of the Sprite as the table fell silent. "He was a brave man."

I leaned over my drink, blinked back tears because I felt raw all over, but then I regained myself when the waitress came back and took our food orders.

"So how did you two become roommates?" I asked, trying not to sound bitter. There wasn't any reason to be--I doubted that someone like Bruce Wayne had the gall to purposefully put someone out in the line of fire. He didn't cause Don's death directly. Maybe

"Dick is actually my adopted brother."

And I nearly choke on my Coke because I... I had fucked Bruce Wayne's adopted brother when I was in high school. "Oh."

* * *

 

I managed lunch without being too weird and without trying to disappear. I tried to tell myself that it was because of Dawn but really it was seeing Dick again. It made me feel like I was in high school again, surrounded by our friends, and then we'd head out to my car and make out in the front seat, and Dick would straddle me and laugh-

Dick's hand was on my shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't think about-"

"Dick, don't apologize." And that reminded me of the time when I found him kissing Kory--beautiful, curvy Kory, who had the prettiest red hair and the prettiest green eyes, and if I wasn't gay I would've probably tried for the whole head cheerleader/quarterback stereotype, but I was and it would've been nerd/football player had _we_ ever actually came out, but we _didn't_ \--and I knew why he was kissing her, because we weren't exclusive and we never had to be because we were fuck buddies.

Even though I had known his favorite color ('twilight blue,' he had sleepily muttered against me) and that he loved chocolate but he also loved carrot cake because fresh carrot cake meant spring (his favorite season, probably because his birthday was the first day of spring)and he loved it when I ran my fingers through his hair or down his arms or his back. And he loved to be held and hated the stars because they made him feel insignificant (but he was always anything but insignificant to me, not that I would tell him that) but he thought that they were beautiful, and sunrises were his favorite time of day but sunsets had his favorite colors.

And we stood there, on a sidewalk downtown, almost not breathing. Maybe he remembered that moment too, the one where I turned away from him and didn't talk to him again except when _at the funeral_.

"I have a beginner's class," Dick blurted out after a minute. "Tomorrow. You could come."

I raised an eyebrow. "Me, yoga?"

"Football players should always take time to stretch. And it'll be easy stuff. We could grab something to eat afterwards."

Was this a date? I'd never gone on a date before. Nothing official at least. There'd been times, before, with Dick-

"Sure," I said, even though I knew that I was going to go to the apartment and start freaking out.

He smiled. "Great! I'll bring an extra mat for you, so just show up in comfy clothes at ten."

"Sounds like a plan."

He hugged me, just for a moment, and I could smell his shampoo, the same fruity stuff he'd been using since his freshman year. I closed my eyes, breathed it in, imagined us back in high school, Dick with a more boyish face pulling away from our first kiss.

Then he was pulling away again, as Bruce and Dawn came out, laughing at something one of them said, and I was turning around and walking away because Dick knows that I suck at goodbyes but he knew we were going to see each other tomorrow, and Dawn was rushing after me.

"Hey, you're actually smiling," she said when we got into my car.

"He does that to me," I told her as we started the car.

"How come you stayed away from him for so long then?"

I thought about the night of the prom again, thought about Don telling me that Kory was dating Dick.

They'd broken up forever ago but.... Dick deserved better than me. Especially since that was the summer that Don died and I took a gap year. I had come home and not talked to anyone that I had known before. I had figured that he would move on with someone more stable than me.

I didn't say anything, and she didn't press, so that was the end of that.

* * *

 

"Okay, so I thought that you said that class was for beginners," I told him as we sat down on the couch in my living room. .

"It totally is, you're just a giant softy. Now, where's the strain?" Dick was sitting next to me, slowly inching closer. "Upper thighs? Back? Shoulders?"

"Nah, it's a good feeling." I put an arm around him and he leaned against me as the movie he licked out from our meager collection started.

"Hank?"

I had heard that tone before. It was the tone that meant business, or whatever Dick's equivalent was. "Yeah?"

His fingers wrapped around me. "I really like this."

I placed a kiss on his cheek. "I really like it too."

* * *

 

Somewhere along the way, I fell asleep. Typically, I don't get up before 12 on the weekends, so getting up at 8:30 in order to insure that I'd be at the studio shortly before 10 was kind of killer.

When I woke up, Dick's eyes were shut but he fidgeted and his eyes opened. He blushed a little bit, maybe because his hand was on my chest, maybe because of the binder he had.

I shifted. "Need help with that?"

He laughed. "Are you offering it?"

"I'm assuming that it is... my fault," I explained to him as I leaned into him, just wanting to kiss-

The hand on my chest pressed. "Wait. Hank, I want us to be for real. Not just, you know, fuck buddies. Please."

I just smiled at him before cupping his face in my hands. I had missed him more than I think I'd ever admit, missed the ways his eyes looked when they closed part way, missed the way he'd lean into my hand.

"I want to be real with you. Very real." I leaned in, even closer, kissed him, my hands running down to his shoulders and then down to his waist. "Driving you into work real, and learning how to cook together real," because god forbid Dick eat anything besides cereal and pizza, not that I'm much better, "and falling asleep every night together real." I got up, lifting him as I did. He was 150 pounds of lean, flexible muscle, and maybe it was just the those happy hormones, but it felt like lifting a feather. He laughed again, wrapping his legs around my waist as his arms rested on my shoulders. "Because I love you, Richard John Grayson, really fucking love you."

I laid him down on the bed and he pulled me closer to him, his fingers threading into my hair. "Love you too," he muttered. "Always did."

* * *

 

"Dick can take care of himself," Bruce started. We'd been sitting in silence, waiting for Dick and Barbara to come from the yoga studio, and it was getting uncomfortable--not that this was much butter. "But, as his older brother, I feel the need to remind you that if you hurt him again, I have people who owe me favors."

_Again._ Dick and I had been together for almost two months and it still made me practically sick to my stomach that there was a time--such a long period of time--that Dick pined for me (his words, not mine) while I didn't even talk to him.

"I get it," I said after a moment. Because Donny was perfectly capable--hell, he could take on as many people as I could--but I still worried about him. Except when he went to Africa. Probably because he was supposed to have gone with Dick, but Dick got sick last minute and-

"How are my two favorite boys?" Dick asked as he came through the door, Barbara following him. "Getting along, I hope."

I chastely kissed him on his cheek, causing a giggle, before I wrapped an arm around him. "Great, babe. Ready to go to dinner?"

"Mhm," he leaned closer into me. "Personally, looking forward to desert more."

I laughed as I squeezed his hip. I was content with just spending time with him right now and as he looked up at me, smiling, I knew that he was too.


End file.
